1. Trade-off of having a young team is lack of playoff experience. 2. McHale is a really green coach. 3. We did not lose games because our team is not as good, but blazers are better at translating talent into performance because they have vets. 4. Dwight played well in the series partly because this is familiar territory for him. Not the same with the other teammates. 5. Not being able to hold onto leads, boneheaded plays, unforced turnovers are all mistakes made by inexperienced players. This simply isn't Rocket's time yet.
They have been together for more years. Yes. Nobody would tell you how good they were before the season. They were predicted as a borderline playoff team with Minnesota.
That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard. McHale has a lot more experience as a HC than Stotts and he has 3 Chips as a player. Dwight and Harden have both been to the finals. Lillard is in his 2nd year and this is his first playoffs and he's playing like a seasoned Vet who's been there done that.
I think in this case experience and ability can be considered mutually exclusive to a degree. Same can be said that a good player doesn't necessarily make a good coach. Also, Stotts seems to have a much beefier resume when it comes to coaching. He's been coaching since the early 90's and has had multiple HC stints. Although I don't think he's gotten as much success as he has now. Lillard is just an anomaly. He plays with so much poise it makes Dwight and Harden look like rookies. Same with Batum. It's eerie. Experience is part of the problem, but I would argue we simply don't have a good coaching staff. Bickerstaff and Finch just look like a couple of yes men who really have no idea what they're doing. McHale hasn't been great, but having no one reliable to defer to doesn't help at all.
Stotts actually coached a third more games than McHale at the NBA level. Harden went to the final as a bench player, not a franchise player. This isn't an excuse, just the cause/reason that pointing out why Rockets suck at this series, Lillard is an all-star, and he shows that you do not necessarily need experience to perform during playoff.
I don't agree with # 3. Vets? our 2 superstars has been in the finals... our team has been in the playoffs last year, we know what to expect... Lillard has never been in the players yet he is playing like he has been there for a long time... blazers has been a lottery team for the past few years... in terms of experience we have more... the whole purpose of coaching staff is to prepare our guys for everything specially in the playoffs... we got none of that...
I think it has a lot to do with the preparation... you go into war and you have proper planning and equipment you will be more likely to succeed... proper preparation and planning defeats experience all the time...
Damian Lillard is a second year player. LaMarcus has been in the playoffs four times. Meanwhile we have two players who's been to the Finals 2 times.
And we made the playoffs last year while Portland didn't. We got more experience that Portland yet were still losing.
This Rockets team has a list of weaknesses but I wouldn't say inexperience is one of them. Maybe if we were dealing with SAS, okc, but to bring up that excuse in this series seems like a cop out.
Generally I agree with the claim that the playoffs are about experience. Strange enough the most solid player for the Rockets is a rookie that has played only few games in the NBA and most of them on garbage time!
Daniels is a special case. He is in a situation where he has got nothing to lose, if he tanks, all the blame would be on the coaching staff to bring in such an unproven talent during the playoff. He does not carry the same amount of pressure as most other players on the team.
1.) Get a veteran coach who will instill some toughness and discipline (Lionel Hollins would be nice) 2.) Get some tough minded, quality veteran role players (I'm sick of softies like D-Mo, Casspi, and Lin and I'm sick of scrubs like Casspi, Garcia, and Hamilton) 3.) Hope Harden can grow a pair when it comes playoff time
I think its coaching really. We have so much talent. So much potential.. -best scoring post game in the game -best set 3 pt marksman in the game(can I make an argument that Trey D is *the best* 3 point set shooter in this playoff?) -arguably best shooting guard (cant say the playoff as Wade is playing every game near elite level now) who excels in driving and pull up -You got a point guard who excels PnR and loves to create before looking for his own shot -You got a pesky defender in Pat Bev -You got a back up center that MANY TEAMS WOULD KILL TO START FOR THEM -and then you got Parson who can do everything for you So many weapons. I mean it's all on the coach. option A: Give Dwight the ball, run some screens for Trey D, now help defenders instead of doubling Dwight, has to scramble to pick up Troy Daniel off screens Option B: Harden Howard PnR. PnR is the strongest play in the game. It gives people nightmares. There are so many thing to do with this. PnR to the basket. PnR to pop. One thing I noticed is that on every PnR Dwight always roll to the basket and sometime it could get bad. Why not have Dwight give a pick, roll off and give an off ball pick to someone like Lin or Troy D, easiest open 3's for at least one game before teams start game planning for it. Option C: Stagger James and Howard. I know, I know why would we do that they're our best players. Harden has shown that he gets mad when Dwight goes to work. Chemistry issues like this isn't going to get solve in 2-3 days so I say we go the latter route. Stagger their minutes. Harden, He likes getting strong big screens. Harden stop trying on D when the option doesnt run through him and it fails. Let Lin play with Howard and Harden play with Omer. Another pro of this is that you don't kill Harden stamina because he's resting and maybe he could play some D and hes happy that the offense is running through him. Option D: Not really an option but an addendum to the other 3. Have TJones and Parsons run screens off ball and crash the basket for rebound. Now this works because lets face it, Tjone is our best "score even though there is no play set for them kind of guy" and usually the guy setting the screen also get open as defender scrambles. "You set screens to get yourself open" is what my coach told me and it's true.
the problem is each of the players in the rotation are only good at 1 thing. rebounding scoring defending i cannot name 1 player that i would without hesitation say is reliably good at 2 of those things.
